Moto3: Fearless Pawi dominates for historic win
Rookie Khairul Idham Pawi mastered tricky conditions to immediately pull out a huge gap which only increased as he put in a succession of fastest laps to ease to victory in the Moto3 Argentina Grand Prix, the second round of the championship.
The Honda Team Asia rider rode confidently and fearlessly on his intermediate dry tyres - exceeding the pace of wet runner Livio Loi in the early stages - before pulling out a final lead of over 26 seconds to become the first ever Malaysian rider to take a win at Grand Prix level.
The 17-year-old showed a glimmer of his prowess in the wet as he stood out from the crowd with an extremely dominant performance to top the wet warm-up session. After losing three grid places to a penalty he immediately shot to the front in the drying conditions and never looked back.
Jorge Navarro (Estrella Galicia 0,0) rose to join Adam Norrodin (Drive M7 SIC) in a sensational battle for second which only ended when the Malaysian caught the paint and crashed out on the final lap, leaving Navarro clear for the position.
Norrodin bravely ran straight over to his bike and pushed it to the line to finish in the points in eleventh.
The final podium spot was hard won in the chasing group with Brad Binder pulling to the front in an exciting battle to the line. The Red Bull Ajo rider was the top KTM finisher and now leads the championship with a total of 36 points, five points ahead of Antonelli.
Andrea Locatelli just missed out after being the main front-runner in the chasing group in fourth for Leopard holding off Joan Mir who set two fastest laps as he made a final surge for position, taking fifth behind his team-mate.
Hiroki Ono battled to sixth, completing a great result for the Honda Team Asia outfit.
John McPhee was the top placed Mahindra on his Peugeot MC SaxoPrint machine, an incredible finish in seventh from a 28th place start.
Aspar Mahindra rider Jorge Martin also impressed as the manufactueres machinery seemed to handle well in the wet for eighth, Jakub Kornfeil took the flag in ninth on the other Drive M7 SIC entry and Niccolo Antonelli (Ongetta-Rivacold) recovered from a poor start to secure a top ten finish.
Also in the points were Juanfran Guevara (RBA Racing) in twelfth, Fabio Quartararo on the third Leopard entry in 13th, Maria Herrera (MH6 Laglisse) in 14th and Philipp Oettl (Schedl GP Racing) securing 15th.
Oettl was the last rider to pass the sinking Livio Loi, who was the only rider to take a tyre gamble on intermediate wet Dunlops.
Initially making the most of the damp patches pulling he pulled out his own lead in second over the chasing pack before being reeled in and passed by both Norrodin and Navarro in one move and sinking down the order as the risk failed to pay off, finishing 16th.
The only Argentinian rider in the paddock; Gabriel Rodrigo; took 19th.
Big names who floundered in the unusual track conditions included Enea Bastianini in 17th after looking strong in practice and Romano Fenati who started second but finished a lowly 20th.
Aron Canet was the only other faller, crashing out of sixth while in the battle for fourth at the start of the penultimate lap.
